In backside-illuminated image sensor (BSI) devices are used for sensing a volume of radiation (e.g., light) projected towards the back surface of a substrate. To do this, an image sensor device uses an array of image sensor elements (e.g., pixels). Each image sensor element includes at least one radiation sensing element, described herein, as a photodetector. The photodetectors may be formed on the front side of the substrate, and then a face to face (e.g., front side to front side) bonding with a carrier (support) material may be performed to avoid the risk of device wafer warping/breaking following thinning, the substrate being thin enough to allow the radiation incident on the back surface of the substrate to reach the photodetectors. Typically, the carrier material is formed of silicon which requires thinning and forming through-silicon-vias (TSV) for coupling to the interconnect structure of the image sensor device in chip packaging. However, this involves extra costs and cycle time for the fabrication process.